This thesis presents a study of Pakistani documentary, with a focus on the ways in which it represents Pakistan’s national identity and history. The study examines three sources of documentary production – state media, commercial television channels, and independent filmmakers – as three distinct voices of Pakistani documentary. The study argues that the discourses of these institutions are governed by their respective ideological, political, and economic priorities. These factors result in two competing approaches to Pakistan’s national history and identity: right-wing and left-wing. The Islamic ideology of the state governs the discourse of state-sponsored documentaries. The commercial television documentaries take an anti-establishment position, however, they remain faithful to Islamic ideology of the state to a large extend. The independent filmmakers, on the other hand, offer a liberal perspective of history and a secular identity of Pakistan. Hence, they offer a critical view of the state’s Islamic ideology as a governing principle of historiography and identity formation. The notion of representation entails the issues of authenticity, credibility, and truth-value, associated with the various methods adopted by the filmmakers. Hence, attention is paid to the styles and modes of documentary, with a reflection on the documentarian’s individual approaches to realism. The documentaries have been placed within historical and political contexts considering Pakistan as a postcolonial state, which also functions as a critical framework of this study.

The subject of this doctoral study is the satirical figure known as the ‘galaunt’, as depicted in English literature and visual art c.1380–c.1550. It combines close textual analysis with investigation of established youth tropes, contemporaneous material culture, and socio-political concerns. It begins by establishing the breadth of the galaunt corpus and the figure’s significance, before tracing the etymology of galaunt and the cultural antecedents of the late medieval tradition in order to establish its hitherto unidentified Classical origins. The study goes on to explore the fundamental aspects of the galaunt’s semiotic makeup: youth; licentiousness; sartorial extravagance; and problematic masculinity. Despite the cultural significance of the late medieval galaunt, it has received little scholarly attention and the true significance of the figure’s role as Wayward Youth is yet to be established. This doctoral thesis moves away from previous scholarship, which has interpreted the figure as an instance of social-mobility discourse, and instead unravels the tradition’s complex conflation of established youth stereotypes and socio-political concerns to reposition the galaunt as a Vice figure symbolising errant youth. The thesis argues for a reappraisal of the significance of youth to late medieval social discourses, particularly in regard to questions of masculinity and status.

This thesis considers how visual art is expressed within English drama during the Elizabethan, Jacobean, and Caroline periods, through studying how portraits are used in performance and narrative. The first part of the thesis, consisting of Chapters One and Two, is concerned with the stage. It explores the range of different functions that a portrait could have in a play, and considers the challenges of bringing these objects onto the stage. The following three chapters make up the second part of the thesis; which shifts focus from the way portraits were used on stage as signifiers, to a consideration of what they signify. Chapter Three explores how characters use portraiture to promote their identity and advertise individuality. It argues for a re-thinking of the significance of ‘life-like’ painting, arguing that portraits can be markers of identity even without necessarily capturing likeness accurately. Chapter Four is about the functions that portraits have as love tokens and within courtship narratives, arguing that they expose the often-flimsy distinction between lust and love. The final chapter addresses the magical and metaphysical aspects of portraiture, and considers their role in witchcraft and murder narratives, but also their metaphorical potential to ‘hold’ the soul of the person that they depict, and therefore function as commemorative objects.

In the discipline of International Relations, scholars have recently drawn attention to how political actors use narratives to claim legitimacy for themselves, their actions, and their use of force. Whilst such work provides welcome insights, there has been little attention given to how these narratives are often told through visual media on digital social media sites. In light of this, this thesis argues that visual media are central to how political actors claim legitimacy for the use of force in the digital age. Theoretically informed by work on aesthetics, narrative, and visual global politics, this thesis provides an analytical framework for studying the visual politics of legitimation. This is then explored through two case studies of the British Army and the National Coalition of Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces. In each case study I draw upon multiple methods to analyse the narrative and visual content of each actor’s official Facebook Page, as well as the contexts of media production and audience reception. This thesis contributes to studies of global politics by illustrating how each actor uses visual media to claim legitimacy for the use of force, and thereby provides the first empirical analysis of the visual politics of legitimation.

This study explores issues of technique, methodology and style in ethnographic/documentary films, with a focus on Sardinia. How are cultural realities constructed in documentary and ethnographic films? In what ways do practical filmmaking strategies reflect wider epistemological questions and ethical concerns? The thesis examines the general stylistic principles that have guided the making of a substantial body of documentary films about Sardinia. Attention has been paid to a range of different methods used by a select number of documentary and ethnographic filmmakers, covering important theoretical points on the distinctive set of technical, aesthetic and ethical problems embodied in the epistemology of their filmmaking practice. The study concludes that scholars should look for a more balanced fusion between film as a multisensory medium of ideas and forms of ethnographic enquiry conducted through language. The nonverbal elements and visual imagery in ethnographic/documentary films suggest obliquely that a kind of knowledge expressed in the concrete case requires an acknowledgment of domains of experience that often elude written expression.

This thesis explores the representation of negative and subversive aspects of the Royal Navy and its seamen during the French Wars, 1793-1815, in contemporary print culture. Visual analysis, supported by archival research, is used to show that evasion and exaggeration were key in the representation of such subjects. The figure of Jack Tar (the common seaman) and the facets of his service referenced in works on paper are investigated as constructs. It is argued that such historical documents confirmed and perpetuated misconceptions informed by dominant expectations, values and concerns. Such depictions, often satirical, are indicative of broader material and ideological contexts. Issues collectively and individually salient for Britons’ and naval seamen are shown to have included those of identity, liberty, state power, subordination, morality and sacrifice. These are revealed to be central to the construction of the notorious naval tar by printmakers, audiences, writers, publishers, politicians, officers, seamen themselves and even historians. In a chronological narrative from recruitment to cessation of service, the thesis explores the experiences of this infamous naval character through his contemporary representation.

This thesis comprises two research papers. The first is a systematic review which examines the effectiveness of Art Therapy (AT) for people with psychosis, and whether it is a suitable and meaningful intervention to them. A systematic search of the literature resulted in 16 articles which were critically reviewed. There was inconclusive evidence for the efficacy of AT due to the limited and poor quality research. However, AT was considered beneficial and meaningful by people with psychosis and art therapists. The use of AT for this population cannot be discounted though better quality research is needed to guide clinical practice. The second component is an empirical paper that explores the meaning of adaptation to First Episode of Psychosis (FEP), through creating images. Ten participants engaged in an interview where they created an image of their experience. The data were analysed through Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis and image analysis. Adaptation to FEP entailed challenges and growth as participants’ came to terms with FEP, reformed their life and re-evaluated their identity and place in the world. This research adds to the recovery and growth literature and highlights the benefits of visual research methods. Drawings produced powerful data which facilitated understanding of the phenomenon.

The work collected together here examines the distinctive conceptual approaches taken by Renaissance architects, during the period c. 1480-1550, towards the designing of their buildings. It analyses the designs of a wide range of buildings from the period by architects including Raphael, Michelangelo and numerous others. The conclusion reached is that many of these architects adopted approaches based, ultimately, on ways of thinking (about art as well as architecture) that had surfaced in late fifteenth-century Florence; and that their approaches were not just similar in many key regards but also corresponded closely with theories of language and literary imitation being aired at around the same time. The essays also explore how certain differences in approach, especially between Raphael and Michelangelo, were directly paralleled by differences in literary theory. Also proposed is that the design methods formulated specifically by Raphael in the years before his death (1520) became the template for those followed by many subsequent ‘High Renaissance’ architects; and that the architectural term ‘order’, which was coined by Raphael before becoming commonplace in architectural theory, had its origins in literary theory. As for the design methods taken up by Michelangelo, it is argued that these were initially comparable to those followed by Raphael, but that they gradually diverged in a way that was very much in line with his conceptual thinking about sculpture and painting, until they became, at a fundamental theoretical level, incompatible with those of his later contemporaries.

This thesis provides the first analysis of occupational therapy and art therapy from an art historical viewpoint. Based on archival material, it examines how modern artists, art pedagogues, schools and museums theorised, implemented and publicised therapeutic art-making practices. It focuses on four case studies in Britain and the US (1937-1946): occupational therapy by László Moholy-Nagy at the School of Design, founded as the New Bauhaus (Chicago); art therapy by Arthur Segal (London and Oxford); Northfield Military Hospital (Birmingham); and The Arts in Therapy exhibition series at the Museum of Modern Art (New York). Elucidating the concepts, practices and display of therapeutic art across these institutions, this research presents new intersections between modern art and medicine. It contributes to the history of art, the history of healing, and the growing medical humanities concerned with their entanglement. Therapeutic approaches defined art as an experiential process, shifting emphasis away from objects, with focus on the psychological and physiological effects on makers rather than what they produced. Consequently, this thesis expands art historical remits by presenting narratives of art that are culturally, socially and politically situated but that predominantly concern ideas, processes and effects on individuals rather than objects, images and performances by them.

In this research I explore artivist performance proposals that lead to an analysis of the spectator position intrinsic to the spectatorial, as a construction linked to colonial discourses of otherness. This investigation presents the encountering processes of the transnational troupe of La Pocha Nostra and the Puerto Rican persona of Freddie Mercado with their respective spectators, where local-global constructs of coloniality become unveiled, made and unmade spectacle through their re-reproduction of otherness. Side by side with performance art-life, I explore the deconstruction and de-linking possibilities of the spectatorial taking the work of these artists to build and develop the dilemmas and alternatives presented. From these complex hyper-othering performance practices I research the social implications on the spectatorial at a local and global level. The artistic proposals discussed are focused under the decolonial lens and researched as practices that make possible the co-creation of decolonial relationalities. I focus in the trans-possibility these ‘other’ encounters produce and are produced by. This work inserts the issue of the spectator within broader social concerns and it is under this umbrella that the ‘question’ of the Other arises within the mechanisms of the modern spectacle. These artistic practices exert diverse tactics that directly imply the figure of the spectator within this social configuration.